@ #13 for $10 you get a surge protector with a warranty and coverage guarantee *at a minimum* that covers items behind it. If you shop around for a few minutes, you can get one that has decent protection built it. Remember, Monster Cables is selling you a mark-up, not quality. For $80 you can get a UPS with enough power to clean shutdown after a power outage. For $100 you can get a middle-of-the-line UPS with enough oomph for a modern PC to run for 10-15 minutes before shutting down.

I had a $30 surge protector on mine, it didn't even need an electrical storm. We had a surge, the protector arc-ed, destroyed my laptop (that was charging) and desktop. The %100 warranty on the surge protector wouldn't cover anything since I had no "proof" that I was using the surge protector at the time (aside from the electrical burns all over the f*ing protector).

What kind of proof are you supposed to have? I suppose that's exactly how they make money by selling shitty surge protectors with warranties: the warranties are bunk.

@ 13; Joule rating really doesn't mean anything either. Virtually everything in the universe has some kind of joule rating. Most companies drum up joule numbers by including things that have nothing at all to do with the surge protection system, such as the housing of the surge protector, etc. Most devices that rely on joule 'shock absorber' type protection systems are garbage anyway. You want stuff that has that but also takes advantage of your ground system, and actively detaches the outlets from the internals in the event of a major surge. Good companies use heat fuses to acomplish this and clamp down pretty fast. While most 10$ devices arent great, you can find some 'cheap' ones that are good. Just go for a good brand named company. (some are APC, TrippLite). For the others with rejected claims, that sucks. I know some companies that honor their equipment protection plans. APC for one, theirs are good and if the device you send back tests that it let voltage through, they give you monies. Proper research saves you from this fate! Get a decent surge protector, one that has ethernet protection (or coax, whatever) and secure your tech! seriously.

That could be possible, though most of the time the NIC is simply built in these days which would fry the area, and even if it wasnt it is possible that it went onto the pci bus and fried the lines. Friend of mine had this happen with a built in NIC and it friend basically everything in the computer except for the CPU and RAM, hit even the VC which sucked, but was covered in a lifetime warranty :)

You're an idiot, in case you didn't know. What if the OP's computers didn't have Wifi? Didn't think of that, huh? There's no reason for the OP to buy a Wifi card when Ethernet is built-in and works for their setup.

My thoughts exactly. Either the line was not properly grounded by the original tech or the surge was large enough to jump any grounding or surge protector. Ethenet has isolation on both ends of the connection ( except for PoE ) and should be immune to power on the lines unless it's so high as to arc the isolator.